Top Metros with Highest Median Earnings for Female Workers

Last week, we looked at metros with the highest concentration of female executives. As we noted, fewer than one in four top executives are female and not a single metropolitan area has a higher proportion of female top executives than the overall US average for men. All of which got us thinking. In what communities do female workers enjoy the highest earnings?

Women typically receive the highest earnings in the same regions where men receive the highest earnings. Of the 10 metros with the highest median earnings for female workers, eight were also among the top 10 metros for male workers. Among the leading metros for female median earnings, only Napa and Baltimore were unique to women.

Despite the relatively high median earnings of women in these metros, men receive even higher earnings in each of these regions. On average, men in the 10 metros with the highest median earnings earn 22 percent more than women (see chart below). The proportion of male median earnings to median female earnings is only slightly better than the national average; while the US median salary for a female working full time is slightly more than $37,000, the corresponding figure for men is $47,000.

Stay tuned. Next week we’ll examine the role occupational choice plays in these differences.